Jagiellon dynasty
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Jagiellon dynasty, family of monarchs of Poland-Lithuania, Bohemia, and Hungary that became one of the most powerful in east central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. The dynasty was founded by Jogaila, the grand duke of Lithuania, who married Queen Jadwiga of Poland in 1386, converted to Christianity, and became King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland. Thus both Poland and Lithuania were united in the person of their sovereign (who soon, however, appointed a grand duke to rule for him in Lithuania). Together they constituted a formidable power, which defeated their major common enemy, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, at the Battle of Tannenberg (Grünfelde; July 15, 1410).
The dynasty was threatened with division into separate houses and disruption of the federation after Władysław’s brother Swidrygiełło was named to replace his cousin Vytautas (Witold) as grand prince of Lithuania (1430). But Vytautas’ brother Sigismund defeated Swidrygiełło and became the grand duke (1434). Then, rather than become divided, the dynasty extended its power; Władysław III Warneńczyk, who succeeded his father as king of Poland in 1434, also assumed the throne of Hungary (as Ulászló I) in 1440. After Władysław was killed fighting the Turks at the Battle of Varna (1444), the Poles elected as their king his brother, Casimir IV, who had succeeded the assassinated Sigismund as grand duke of Lithuania in 1440.
Largely sympathetic to the Lithuanian desire for autonomy and determined to create a strong, central royal power, Casimir clashed with the Polish magnates, large landowners who had dominated the earlier Jagiellon reigns, by granting extensive and exclusive rights and privileges to the gentry in order to gain their political and financial support for his active foreign policy. As a result, Casimir was able not only to engage successfully in the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66) against the Teutonic Knights, by which he acquired a large portion of their territory, but also to place his son Władysław on the thrones of Bohemia (as Vladislav II; 1471) and Hungary (as Ulászló II; 1490) and to fight the Turks (1485–89), who had disrupted his kingdom’s trade by seizing control of the mouths of the Dniester and Danube rivers.
During the reigns of Casimir’s sons John Albert and Alexander I, however, the Jagiellon rulers lost a large degree of their power in Poland to the nobility (as did Władysław in Bohemia and Hungary); and, by weakening their realm, they exposed it to the aggression of the Teutonic Knights and the state of Muscovy, which expanded into Lithuanian territory.
When Sigismund I the Old succeeded his brother Alexander in 1506, the Polish–Lithuanian federation was seriously threatened by foreign invasion as well as by internal decay. Gradually strengthening his government (although not diminishing gentry power), Sigismund used diplomatic means to come to terms with the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I, who had been encouraging the Teutonic Order and Muscovy to attack Poland and Lithuania. He defeated the Muscovite army at Orsha (1514) and successfully contended with the Teutonic Order so that in 1525 it converted its lands into the secular Duchy of Prussia, which became a Polish fief.
Sigismund’s nephew Louis II succeeded Władysław as king of Bohemia and Hungary in 1516, but his death at the Battle of Mohács (at which the Turks destroyed the Hungarian monarchy; 1526) brought an end to Jagiellon rule there. Sigismund, on the other hand, improved the political stability of Poland and Lithuania, incorporated Mazovia into his realm (1526), and also promoted the development of Renaissance culture in Poland.
Nevertheless, the Polish monarchy continued to lose power to the magnates and gentry, which contended with each other for political dominance; and when Sigismund II Augustus ascended the throne (1548), he was obliged to manoeuvre between the magnates and the gentry while maintaining his father’s policy of avoiding foreign conflict. But when Livonia sought his protection from Muscovy and incorporation into his realm (1561), he allied with the gentry to finance the major war against Muscovy, which he entered to secure his control over Livonia and the Baltic seacoast. Since Lithuania could not bear the major burden of the war, he tried to create a firmer union between Poland and Lithuania. In 1569 he arranged for the two countries to enter the Union of Lublin and form a Polish–Lithuanian commonwealth. Three years later Sigismund II Augustus died, leaving no heirs, thereby ending the Jagiellon dynasty.